Buy an EV they said...
Discussion
So I had to make a trip down to Bulford last week.
I normally take my diesel Audi but I sold it a couple of months ago so had to take the EV.
Here is a rough breakdown of what happened....
Its a c.200 mile trip each way with some driving around the area over a couple of days, a trip that I have done many, many times before but never in an EV.
I knew it was going to be "fun" but not this much "fun".
Trip down, 250mi range at the start so in theory 50mi spare.
Made it to Insta Volt on the M40 for a 125kW splash and dash - was down to 120mi range.
It put in at c.70kW/h and I was back up to 230 ish miles in the tank. Insta volt charging was easy, tap card and go.
Spent about 30 min on charge - got bored after a costa and browsing the web...
Made it to my hotel with about 125mi left. AC was on and was doing 70 most of the way with the occasional "burst" so to speak.
The following day I had a few things to do and knew I would need 120-130 miles of range.
So decided to find a charger.... this is where things went a bit silly.
First try...
Genie point.
Create account.
Verify account.
Register vehicle.
Add £10 credit to new account.
THEN try and connect...
Refuses to connect to its network. Great.
Half an hour wasted.
Second try...
Another genie point.
Got further this time. Said it was authorising..
Then "waiting for EV" or similar....
Tried for half an hour - total waste of time.
Third try, now back over Amesbury and thank god they had an Insta Volt. Tap, charge.
Why cant they all be this easy?
But, down side only 50kW charging so was pulling about 45kW so ended up sat there for 1.5 hours as by this point I was on about 15%.
Following day more driving around but calculated I needed 2 top ups to get home.
So back to Amesbury instavolt for 45 min before starting the trip back home.
Charged up to 190mi which would not get me home but meant only having to do a splash and dash on the M40 plus some reserve in the tank.
My co-pilot thought I was turning into rain man at this point... apparently I was rambling about kW/mi and slipstreaming trucks...
Anyway off we go north.
Pulled into Banbury with c.100 miles left. ONE charge point free... yeah my lucky day eh?
No.
No.
No.
"Out of service".
Well sh**.
So 8 points, 7 in use and 1 broken. Great.
But all was not lost, a few mins later a slot came free.
Pulled in, tap, charge.... charge I said... SH**.
Its not charging.
"Initialising"
I then spent half an hour googling trying to figure out what the problem was.
Plug in, unplug, ignition on, off, drive back, drive forward nothing working... worried now!
Then another point came free and I darted over to that. This time plugged in tapped my card and off it went.
Phew!!
I needed to put in around 50 miles to make sure I got home. I put in 70 just to be safe!
Got home with 19 miles range left.
In short - EVs are cr@p at long distance driving.
I shudder to think how this would have gone in the middle of winter with ambient temps 20-25c lower.
I have no desire to repeat this trip (although I will have too so will hire a car) and over the 3/4 days I spent around 5 hours of my time either on charge or trying to get it to charge.
Plus probably another hour or so driving out of my way to charging points - so call it 6 hours.
Normally I would gas up once during this trip which would take max 10 mins.
So 6 hours faff for maybe 12-14 hours driving. c50% of the drive time putting fuel in the thing. Not good.
All in all just a lot of stress and hassle and drinking expensive coffee.
Insta Volt seem the best chargers.
I have tried Ecotricity before and they are a complete waste of time, as are Genie point so it seems.
I normally take my diesel Audi but I sold it a couple of months ago so had to take the EV.
Here is a rough breakdown of what happened....
Its a c.200 mile trip each way with some driving around the area over a couple of days, a trip that I have done many, many times before but never in an EV.
I knew it was going to be "fun" but not this much "fun".
Trip down, 250mi range at the start so in theory 50mi spare.
Made it to Insta Volt on the M40 for a 125kW splash and dash - was down to 120mi range.
It put in at c.70kW/h and I was back up to 230 ish miles in the tank. Insta volt charging was easy, tap card and go.
Spent about 30 min on charge - got bored after a costa and browsing the web...
Made it to my hotel with about 125mi left. AC was on and was doing 70 most of the way with the occasional "burst" so to speak.
The following day I had a few things to do and knew I would need 120-130 miles of range.
So decided to find a charger.... this is where things went a bit silly.
First try...
Genie point.
Create account.
Verify account.
Register vehicle.
Add £10 credit to new account.
THEN try and connect...
Refuses to connect to its network. Great.
Half an hour wasted.
Second try...
Another genie point.
Got further this time. Said it was authorising..
Then "waiting for EV" or similar....
Tried for half an hour - total waste of time.
Third try, now back over Amesbury and thank god they had an Insta Volt. Tap, charge.
Why cant they all be this easy?
But, down side only 50kW charging so was pulling about 45kW so ended up sat there for 1.5 hours as by this point I was on about 15%.
Following day more driving around but calculated I needed 2 top ups to get home.
So back to Amesbury instavolt for 45 min before starting the trip back home.
Charged up to 190mi which would not get me home but meant only having to do a splash and dash on the M40 plus some reserve in the tank.
My co-pilot thought I was turning into rain man at this point... apparently I was rambling about kW/mi and slipstreaming trucks...
Anyway off we go north.
Pulled into Banbury with c.100 miles left. ONE charge point free... yeah my lucky day eh?
No.
No.
No.
"Out of service".
Well sh**.
So 8 points, 7 in use and 1 broken. Great.
But all was not lost, a few mins later a slot came free.
Pulled in, tap, charge.... charge I said... SH**.
Its not charging.
"Initialising"
I then spent half an hour googling trying to figure out what the problem was.
Plug in, unplug, ignition on, off, drive back, drive forward nothing working... worried now!
Then another point came free and I darted over to that. This time plugged in tapped my card and off it went.
Phew!!
I needed to put in around 50 miles to make sure I got home. I put in 70 just to be safe!
Got home with 19 miles range left.
In short - EVs are cr@p at long distance driving.
I shudder to think how this would have gone in the middle of winter with ambient temps 20-25c lower.
I have no desire to repeat this trip (although I will have too so will hire a car) and over the 3/4 days I spent around 5 hours of my time either on charge or trying to get it to charge.
Plus probably another hour or so driving out of my way to charging points - so call it 6 hours.
Normally I would gas up once during this trip which would take max 10 mins.
So 6 hours faff for maybe 12-14 hours driving. c50% of the drive time putting fuel in the thing. Not good.
All in all just a lot of stress and hassle and drinking expensive coffee.
Insta Volt seem the best chargers.
I have tried Ecotricity before and they are a complete waste of time, as are Genie point so it seems.
Evanivitch said:
What was the EV? I missed it.
Unfortunate it wasn't smooth going, but the system is getting better. I'm surprised you found such a busy charging hub too, but I suppose that's the future to come.
It was great on the way down only us there - but it was during the England game. Return was Friday PM... so I guess maybe the busiest time of the week.Unfortunate it wasn't smooth going, but the system is getting better. I'm surprised you found such a busy charging hub too, but I suppose that's the future to come.
Its an ipace.
oop north said:
Sorry Simon - didn’t twig it was you (never even read your user name oops!). Didn’t think you still had the ipace - have done 20700 miles in mine now - about 1500 in the last four weeks just on weekend trips to Edinburgh, Kelso and Worcester.
They said we could keep it till March so we took them up on that. Emma wants a(nother) mini so I am starting to look around for one but it wont be an EV. Just not suited to our needs really at the moment but if the current trend on car prices continue I may well be walking to work at this rate! Well I am off to London at the end of the month and for the first time in 20 years of going I have booked the train. The car will get parked at the local station. How bad can it be!
Anyway, some more joy landed at my feet. Try getting an invoice out of instavolt. Jesus what a faff. They have a website but you need to know the time (+/- 30 min) that you charged. Thats all well and good if you take a photo off the "end" screen but a) not all chargers have this end screen and b) if you forget or you charged 2-3 times in a day its a right hassle.
In addition their chargers are listed in one giant drop down list. You have to scroll through about 200 locations to find the one you used... and no it does not appear to be in any sort of order!
On the plus side genie refunded my £10 and closed my account without much fuss.
Anyway, some more joy landed at my feet. Try getting an invoice out of instavolt. Jesus what a faff. They have a website but you need to know the time (+/- 30 min) that you charged. Thats all well and good if you take a photo off the "end" screen but a) not all chargers have this end screen and b) if you forget or you charged 2-3 times in a day its a right hassle.
In addition their chargers are listed in one giant drop down list. You have to scroll through about 200 locations to find the one you used... and no it does not appear to be in any sort of order!
On the plus side genie refunded my £10 and closed my account without much fuss.
Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff